New Delhi: A Delhi court has convicted a woman in a case of theft of 10 Indian Airlines tickets worth Rs 1.8 lakh after she pleaded guilty to being involved in it and sentenced her to detention till rising of the court and a fine of Rs five lakh.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vidya Parkash also directed convict Naiya Relan to defray the expenses incurred by the probe agency in the trial.

On CBI`s plea that fine may be imposed upon her it defraying the expenses incurred by the prosecution during the trial, the CMM directed Relan to pay another Rs 4 lakh.

Naiya Relan was involved in stealing and fraudulent refund of ten Indian Airlines manual tickets in 1999.

She voluntarily admitted that during October 1999 ten blank tickets were stolen by a co-accused and the same were filled in by her in fake name and thereafter, refunds were obtained on them.

"Accused Naiya Relan is convicted for the offences under section 120B IPC (criminal conspiracy), 380 (theft in a building), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 471 (using a forged document as genuine) and substantive offences under section 467/468 IPC," the court said.

"Keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the case including the voluntary plea of guilt made by the convict and the fact that she has been facing trauma of trial for last ten years, the interest of justice would be met if the convict is sentenced to TRC and to pay fine of Rs 5 lakh.

"She is also directed to pay Rs 4 lakh to CBI for defraying expenses incurred during trial in the matter," the court said.

The case was registered by CBI in July 2001. It was alleged that 100 "manual double sector tickets" of Indian Airlines Ltd were missing or stolen from IGI Airport and fraudulent refund were obtained on them.
During probe, theft of ten double sector tickets from Indian Airlines office at Lucknow airport came to light. These ten tickets were reissued at various Indian Airlines offices in and around Delhi and fraudulent refunds were obtained on them.

The CBI said its probe revealed one of the convicts in the case, Indian Airlines` Traffic Superintendent Satpal Singh (who had entered into plea bargaining), was transferred from Delhi to Lucknow airport office of the airlines.

It said Singh had entered in criminal conspiracy with his Delhi-based friend and Naiya Relan`s husband Sanjay Relan (who too had entered into plea bargaining) in October 1999 and had stolen 10 IA manual double sector tickets between October 10 to 23, 1999.

Another accused Rajesh Kumar took refund on eight of these tickets in fictitious name of Vijay Kumar. Arvind Handa, who was under the employment of Sanjay Relan, helped in making fake driving licence in the name of Vijay, to be used by Rajesh. While Handa had turned approver in the case, Rajesh and one other accused were declared proclaimed offencer in 2005.